20 replies to this topic

[god0fgod]

If search engines knew how much traffic websites get, they should reward the sites they think do not have as much traffic as they deserve.

[Jexley]

I would think that Googs would be able to measure a relative Bounce Rate based on how quickly the user responds to the search results page. For instance, if I run a search and click on the top result, Google knows if I came right back and clicked on the number 2 result, or refined my search, and anything else I came back and did on that page.

From my experience, I've had two brand new sites that were showing in the Top 4 for their targeted terms. One of them started getting traffic from it that showed a wonderfully low bounce rate, the other had an abominable bounce rate. After 3 months, the one with the better bounce rate maintained their position, where the other dropped just out of the Top 10 despite the fact that it was more relevant to it's targeted term than the other, better performing, site.

I'm sure this can mean lots of things, like an increase in competition levels and all sorts of other things I haven't actively been monitoring, but it did make me think a bit on what kinds of information Googs can gather without peeking into my GoAn stats.

[Randy]

It's a good point to note Jexley, but the questions quickly become how one defines Bounce Rate and what does it really mean?

As a for instance, let's say someone searches for a topic on Google, goes to a Wikipedia page (or whatever) and finds the answer they were looking for right away so didn't have to look any further around the Wiki site. But then this same user goes back to Google to click on another result in the same SERP page. Not because they didn't find the Wiki page informative, but only to confirm what they'd found on the Wiki page was 100% correct. This second page didn't really contain the answer straight away so the searcher had to dig around for a bit. But they did eventually confirm the Wikipedia info was correct.

In the cold hard world of statistical analysis the Wiki page would look like a fairly immediate bounce, even though it was actually the better page to return for the query, while the second hit would look like it was a better choice because there was no immediate bounce in the picture. When in fact the opposite was true from the users perspective.

That's a very simple example of what the search engines are up against when trying to use things like bounce rate as a factor in search engine rankings. And why they have to be pretty darned careful with how they employ such factors in their ranking algorithms.

I don't doubt for a second that the engines use these signals in some fashion. But to rely too heavily on any single signal, or even a few closely related signals can be quite dangerous and end up hurting their SERP relevance. So they've learned to be careful with them.

Looking at your example from a different angle, it's possible (likely?) that more people linked to your winning page because real people found more value in it. For whatever reason. In a perfect world that's the real beauty behind Google's reliance on links and anchor text. And if there weren't so many linking schemes out there that are specifically designed to fool Google it would be about as perfect as a piece of software could get. Which is why Google spends so much time and effort ferreting out such linking schemes to get them devalued, so they don't mess with their underlying system that works so well in a perfect world.

[BNBuzz]

I do apologize if the this has been asked a million times. I did search topic and not find much.

I assume that traffic is an important thing when search engines evaluate a site. Not sure what percentage of the "whole picture" it is but if is important, how does one get traffic to a site when its not a real popular site?

Can someone tell me if it is important, and how one gets the traffic if it is important.

Looks like I have read the same question on some other place and tried replying too...

Anyways... only traffic has NO effect at all in your ranking within search results. Actually, you gain traffic by having better PR, not have better PR by having artificial traffic.

makes sense?

[Jill]

Anyways... only traffic has NO effect at all in your ranking within search results. Actually, you gain traffic by having better PR, not have better PR by having artificial traffic.

makes sense?

Not at all, actually.

[adibranch]

It's a good point to note Jexley, but the questions quickly become how one defines Bounce Rate and what does it really mean?

As a for instance, let's say someone searches for a topic on Google, goes to a Wikipedia page (or whatever) and finds the answer they were looking for right away so didn't have to look any further around the Wiki site. But then this same user goes back to Google to click on another result in the same SERP page. Not because they didn't find the Wiki page informative, but only to confirm what they'd found on the Wiki page was 100% correct.

thats where time on site would come into play.. ie bounce rate on its own is not enough, but combine this with time on site and it goes another very large perspective. Your wiki reader would have to spend at least 30 seconds if not longer to find the info. If it was a failled, site, they'd be gone within ten seconds.